NBC shutters Shop & Style

NBC is terminating its August trial of home shopping show Shop &
Style, which debuted Aug. 4 on the network’s owned TV stations in New York,
Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco. The show will have its last airing
Friday.

The company issued a short statement confirming the cancellation, adding that
it "provided ShopNBC with increased online traffic, new customers and additional
vendors. Our next step is to evaluate the results and determine where to go with
the concept."

The show’s ratings tell part of the story -- it averaged a 1/3 in Chicago,
down from a 2.2/7 for The Other Half, which had been airing in the 10 a.m.-11
a.m. time period.

Philadelphia was the only market where the home shopping show did a little
better in the ratings than the show it replaced.

But observers also noted that the show probably wasn’t moving much product off
the shelves to be dropped so quickly (although it would have come off the air at
the end of August in any event).

A source familiar with the situation confirmed that executives involved didn’t
feel that sales were strong enough to justify the show’s commercial-free format. NBC
executives declined comment beyond the statement.